Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Currumbin 2006 - Day 2 (140706)

At 2.45am, I had barely slept. A noise was ringing in my ears. It was JY's alarm clock. Since I knew I couldn't get back to sleep, I decided to follow JY up the spiral stairs to wait for my turn to shower. I made myself useful and turned on the television to check the weather. 5 minutes later, I could recite the weather forecast for major cities in the world (England was going to be a cool 24 degrees, in SUMMER!), but I didn't know what Byron Bay was going to be like. Windy in Melbourne, but sunny in Sydney. Just go with the better weather! Not very useful after all.

Gathered the stuff to use for later's 'picnic' in an unknown location. Shower first thing in the morning is definitely a great thing! Wakes you up, perk you up! :D But sadly, our eyes still very beady.

Guess what we were doing!

We made tiny holes of butter on our extrasoft bread because the damn fat refused to melt. Tuna was mixed with sweet mayo (why are low-fat products nearly always higher in calories?), onions, and our favourite black pepper fresh from the grinder. Eggs were boiled for mixing with more mayo, ham were taken out, water bottles were refilled, coffee and tea were made, snacks were laid nicely in the grocery bags, and with my great foresight, a packet of wet tissue was brought along.

Why Byron Bay leh? Because it is supposed to be the part of Australia that sees the sun first. It's a small town about 1.5hr drive from Currumbin (In normal traffic. I went back a few days later on a night trip where we started out at 12am. Guess how long we took?). It's one of those places with a flat horizon so I think the sunrise should be spectacular!

Pui lah! The weather sucked ass. It was windy as we ran towards the toilets. Luckily, I have been there before so we did not need to hesitate and pee in our pants. It drizzled all the way and there was no egg yolk to be seen.

How black the sky was!

The other side of the lighthouse not much better...

If you walk further down, you will get to the most easternly side of Mainland Australia.

This, my friends, is the sunrise.

Do you like sunrise or sunset? I like sunsets because the night is nice. I find myself most *ahem* contemplative at night. Like today for instance. I took the bus for my evening class and really enjoyed the short 10min ride, because it was dark and I could see the lights from the suburbs. If you get some great music playing in your earphones, it would complete the experience. One of the things I love best about Australia! Sometimes the lack of humans is very calming.

DIY photography! See the lighthouse in the background? Mostly covered by us? My hair is like a siao charbor. I dyed it purple; everyone said it's red. Gah! By the way, I have more than one jacket, but this is the one with hood and is relatively waterproof. Not like I get to wear this back in Singapore. Ice-skating anyone?

The weather was terrible. We couldn't see much and as we descended the stairs down to the most easternly side of Mainland Australia, it began to POUR. Our role-play as paparazzi was washed away with the rain. Zzzzzzzz...

One good thing came out of the trip though. We saw dolphins/sharks! Now, now. We were quite far from the sea and could only make out a school of swimming things. Because it's the whale migration season and because dolphins swim with whales, we assumed that they were dolphins.

Try to spot it? It's blackish.

After the pouring weather, there was no point sticking around. I think many residents of Byron Bay are very healthy. They climb to the top of the lighthouse, which was located on a hill, walk all the way down to the most easternly side, usually only dressed in shorts and tees. Look at what we wore! It was freezing! I applaude you brave and healthy souls!

Bundled up in the car for Rainbow Bay where we would have our 'picnic' at Point Danger. All the while, when we see interesting road names, we wondered why they were named as such. Why Piggabeen (pig has been here?), why Point Danger (what's so dangerous about the place?), why Gordon falls (Gordon fell down there?)? Mind-boggling really. I was told there was a great pie shop along the highway when driving from Byron Bay to Gold Coast. With such a lovely sign, how can you miss it?

I love the name: Humble Pie!

I had ONLY one pie because we still have our picnic ahead. I wish we could have brought the frozen pies back because they were really yummy. My weakness is pastries!!! YUM!!! But we have a full day ahead and tomorrow was going to be another long day out too. So no frozen pies.

R's apple strudel. Looks yummy! Australia is supposed to be where apple strudels originated from but I haven't had one here yet. Lol...

At Point Danger, we saw lots of whales near the shores!

How many whales were there?!

Boo! Not whales but surfers! Muahahahahahaha!!! It was very cold and a lot of these surfers were barely in their teens! Amazing! We did see whales though they were quite far away. There was no questioning that they were whales because they were flapping their fins and water was spraying out from their blowholes (?). I like!

Click to enlarge and spot the whales!

Coffee, coffee you saved me!

Cold and wet, we drove to Gold Coast where all the touristy beaches are. First stop was the Conrad Jupiter Casino. There's a casino in Brisbane, which I think is much, much nicer. The culture here is really different. In Singapore, I think when the IRs are ready, the security guards would be super serious. Here, the security guards (at the doors) actually monkey around when you are taking photos outside the casino, and make interesting conversations like how his surname is the same as yours and so he must be your cousin. Let's see what will happen in Singapore.

When we were inside, I didn't really want to play. I suppose this is a good thing because I don't like the feeling of losing money for nothing. JY was into Pokies (or Jackpot as some of us call it), so I sat beside her while she tried her luck. After a while, I realised I had nothing much to do. I dropped a dollar into the machine beside hers and won 20 free games! I sat there watching my credits go up while JY's went down. Muahahahahahaha! Won $8 in all. I think it's really scary when you see the expert pokiers playing. Most of them are elderly people and they spend in the hundreds I think. When they see that your machine is winning a bit, they will move next to you, using their body language to urge you to leave. I think that is why many people want to guard their machines because if you feed it enough, it will vomit things back out. I hope no one I know in Singapore will be addicted to gambling when the IRs open. Scary!

Casino was near Pacific Fair. Since it was not like we had our day packed (besides, what can we do when it was drizzling one second and sunny the next?), we went for a spot of shopping. I hopped into Ninewest again because sales was still on! The bag I had been eyeing was on discount and I used the voucher my dear friend, S, sent me for my birthday to make the purchase! Woohoo! Shopping, shopping!

Even after shopping, I was still feeling blah. We were wondering how come it was only 1pm. Zzzzz... We have been up almost for 12 hours already! We wasted more time at Surfer's Paradise. I tried the mobile public toilet! Very fun! You go in, a voice will come out to tell you to remember to lock your door and to remind you that you only have 10 minutes in the loo. It's free and it's an experience! Try it! Though it's not the most fragrant of toilets! Hahahahaha...

We wasted more time at the shops. It was sad when we saw a group of married men going into a sex shop (selling the toys, not the human services) while their wives stood outside shouting for them to come out because they refused to step into the shop. The shop is somewhat like the one at Lucky Plaza I think.

Did I mention that I was sick? I had a bloody sorethroat and stupid Strepsils cost $6! Can puke blood!!! I rather buy Fisherman's Friend although it didn't help much. Zzzz...

Dinner was at Seafood Mania. I wanted so much to eat those shellfish and spicy pasta but shit the throat! Cannot eat. Only settled for salmon, which according to my friends, was delicious. By then, I couldn't even taste much. BAH BAH BAH!

I die die wanted to buy green tea frappe from Starbucks because the throat was irritating me. I want something cold, dammit! Guess what happened later?

More bloody rain in the car!

We missed roads once or twice and finally got back to the chalet at 8pm? After a nice, hot shower, I was still feeling miserable. I drank herbal tea, and ate tonnes of strawberries! We played an excruciating game of aeroplane chess. Remember that game? Looks something like this:

Source. I want a huge ass aeroplane chess set like this!!! I want, I want, I want!!!

While I was painstakingly trying to find Currumbin Rock Pool in the directory, those three Malaysians ganged up against me and kicked my aeroplanes back to the starting point. As if I wasn't sick enough! They wanted to do me in! BAH!!!

I sadly dragged myself into bed after D forced two Vitamin C down my throat. I am so *unfortunate*. *sobs*

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